In an article published by Bloomberg Law, Partners Karin Dryhurst and Jessica Lewis question the fundamental fairness of results that come out of in-house agency courts, as their evidentiary standards are more relaxed than the Federal Rules of Evidence. As the entity that made these rules decades ago, Congress should step in, Dryhurst and Lewis write.
Excerpt: “One of the requirements is that a regular person can’t testify about what they think the defendant was thinking—because we don’t trust people to be mind-readers. So, if an agency allows witnesses to opine that an alleged wrongdoer knew what they were doing was wrong, the decision-maker may technically have received more information, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that it will lead to a more informed result.”
